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John Lewis at Christmas has become a highlight for consumers with its heart-warming adverts – and now the department store’s insurance division is giving its customers the chance to shoot their own using Vine.

Using the six-second video platform, customers are invited to direct their own stop-start motion picture inspired by the brand’s latest offering to promote its ‘What Matters Most‘ campaign.

The animated advert is a little dull compared to what we we know John Lewis is capable of, but it gets the message across with its strap line: ‘If it matters to you, it matters to us.’ But, that’s not the important part. It’s the competition. It’s interesting because the mechanic is simple. Shoot six-seconds of video content, upload onto Twitter incorporating the relevant hashtag and wait to see if you’re a winner. If you’re wondering the prize is £1,000 of vouchers and runners up get one of three Canon cameras.

However, I would’ve liked to have seen adam&eveDDB, the agency behind the concept, bring in some better known judges to create another news story. My mind immediately thinks of Rus Yusupov, Colin Kroll or Dom Hofmann – Vine’s co-founders (Ok, not immediately but you understand my thinking.) Failing that, Nick Park or winners from the British Animation Awards or the British Animation Film Festival. Advertising gurus Simon Lloyd and Ben Tollett could sit on the panel but I don’t think they should run the game entirely because it simply doesn’t ooze credibility. In fact, it undermines it. Perhaps budgets play a part, but quite often people are happy to donate their time for free in exchange for national PR.

Currently there’s no chatter on Twitter about the competition. But, I’ll give the campaign its dues – despite the top two YouTube clips generating just two views to date.

Perhaps the brand would do well to front one version of its animation with details about the competition and, like its criteria, edit its content down to six-seconds to further inspire entrants.

Overall, the social media campaign is almost there. Who knows? Maybe it’ll be reviewed in time for Christmas.

It’s been a while but I’ve seen a campaign I actually like – thanks to Confused.com.

The insurance comparison site has kept its latest PR and marketing push simple, by setting out to answer the crazy questions that consumers have on their mind but have never been able to ask.

At the top of the list, according to new research, is ‘what’s the fuss with the Kardashian’s?’ Fair enough – I’m not sure either but it doesn’t stop me going crazy trying to keep up with them.

So, to help the nation out Confused.com is answering a series of random questions through short YouTube videos, featuring a mad scientist character, and inviting people to tweet questions next Wednesday using a special hashtag.

It’s an interesting campaign and works well because consumers get something useful out of it – knowledge. The fact that confused consumers will be looking to Confused.com for clarity is brilliant, making it a thought leader in its sector and everything else as well! To me, it’s very clever and well executed. My only issue is with the scientist who through looks suggests that the brand had no budget for Stephen Fry, so got a poor look-a-like instead.

But, you can’t win them all. But remember folks, in PR it’s necessary to die trying.)

Uploaded less than a week ago, the clip’s already drummed up more than 1 million views and it brings the topic of a tuneless music channel to the front of all viewers’ minds: “They’ve got a point there, it doesn’t play much music anymore.”

MTV’s apparently responded to creator Brian Firenzi’s, of 5 Second Films, clip on Twitter and has even gone as far as to agree with him. But, other than the acknowledgement, the brand is still transmitting radio silence.

MTV’s right to laugh at it, but it should be doing a lot more to respond to the millions that agree with Brian’s point of view. Managed correctly, it’s a great PR opportunity to communicate that it’s still in touch with what viewers want.